In The Artangel Collection
Filmed in 2021 during the COVID pandemic, REMOTE explores what it means to live in a ‘hyperconnected’ future populated by isolated individuals who find new ways to maintain human relationships. REMOTE is a single screen film that premiered at TATE Modern before screening in fifteen cinemas across the UK. It has since been included in film festivals, a Biennale and in museum and gallery programmes.
Artists
Contemporary video artist and filmmaker Mika Rottenberg and multidisciplinary artist, storyteller and film producer Mayhad Tousi came together to produce their first joint feature film with Remote. Read on to find out more about each artist's practice.
Mika Rottenberg
Mika Rottenberg’s work combines film, installation and sculpture to explore how experiences, objects and values are produced in our hyper-capitalist world.
In a series of remarkable video works often situated within theatrical installations, Rottenberg connects seemingly disparate places, people and things Weaving fact and fiction together, she to creates elaborate and subversive visual narratives that highlight the inherent absurdity of our contemporary existence.
Born in Buenos Aires in 1976, Rottenberg spent her formative years in Israel then moved to the US where she studied at the School of Visual Arts and Columbia in New York.
A solo exhibition of Rottenberg’s work is currently on view at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal. In 2021, the Louisiana Museum in Humlebæk, Denmark presented Bowls Balls Souls Holes, a major survey of her work. Easy Pieces was presented at the New Museum in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, and Museum of Contemporary Art in Toronto in 2019 – 2020. Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art in London opened in 2018 with a survey of Rottenberg’s work, the same year she had a solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria.
Rottenberg was the recipient of the 2019 Kurt Schwitters Prize, which recognizes artists who have made a significant contribution to the field of contemporary art. In 2018, she was the winner of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize. She is represented by Hauser & Wirth.
Mahyad Tousi
Mahyad Tousi is a multidisciplinary writer, producer, cinematographer, and director working across story formats, genres, and platforms. Based in Los Angeles, his projects span network television to contemporary art.
Tousi was the executive producer of CBS primetime comedy United States of Al. He is currently writing and producing 1001, a sci-fi adaptation of The Tales from a Thousand and One Nights.
Tousi is also the co-founder of BoomGen Studios, a creative IP incubator working across storytelling traditions and formats for the last sixteen years. He founded Starfish Accelerator and is a General Partner of Starfish Fund—a 10-year vision for a self-sustaining cultural ecosystem for underrepresented artist-entrepreneurs. He advocates for the critical impact of popular culture in shaping our shared future and sits on the advisory board of MIT’s Center for Advanced Virtuality.
Images: (left) Still from Remote, Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi (2022). © Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi. Courtesy the artists and Hauser & Wirth. Images (top to bottom): Portrait of Mika Rottenberg. Photograph: Miro Kuzmanović. Portrait of Mahyad Tousi. Photograph: Michael E. Mason
Production Credits
Directed by Mika Rottenberg & Mahyad Tousi
Written by Mahyad Tousi
Based on a story by Mika Rottenberg & Mahyad Tousi
Cinematography by Nickolas Rossi
Casting by Damian Bao
Production Design by Mika Rottenberg, Katrin Altekamp
Costumes by Laleh Khorramian
Edited by Mika Rottenberg
Executive Producers Mika Rottenberg, Okwui Okpokwasili, Mahyad Tousi
Producers Mika Rottenberg, Jonathan Burkhart
Co-producer Michael Goodin
Cast
Okwui Okopkwasili as Unoaku
Joony Kim as Eunji
Nikita Tewani as Anu
Pooya Mohseni as Ramesh
Antonia Predovan as Matija
Yvette Mercedes as Kami
Image: Still from Remote, Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi (2022). © Mika Rottenberg and Mahyad Tousi. Courtesy the artists and Hauser & Wirth
Who made this possible?
Credits
REMOTE was commissioned by Artangel; the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; in association with Hauser & Wirth. The film was completed with support by MOCA’s Environmental Council, Los Angeles, US; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Canada; X Museum, Beijing, China; the Busan Biennale, Korea; and The Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, US.
Artangel is generously supported using public funding by Arts Council England, and by the private patronage of The Artangel International Circle, Special Angels, Guardian Angels, and The Company of Angels.
